"Help me lay my baby to rest," is the heading of a GoFundMe page set up for the mother of slain youth Tyshawn Lee, who was shot down last week in an alley on Chicago's South Side, lured there by his father's gang rivals, police say.

Chaquela Moore created the page on Nov. 2 for her friend Karla Lee, the boy's mother, according to the site. By Sunday it had raised $17,492 of a $10,000 goal, with donations coming from 727 people.

But a firestorm of controversy erupted Saturday after the mom reportedly posted several now deleted Instagram videos that defended her purchase of the car with some of the money, saying that she needs it for protection because she is afraid to walk or take the bus, according to DNAInfo.

"If a m——-f——- telling you they gonna try to take your life, too, because of whatever the f—- is going on … they already took my son. I walk to work, I get on the bus. I'm not trying to be a target for nobody," Lee said in one of the deleted Instagram videos, writes DNAInfo.

The uproar began after an unverified Facebook post on Saturday said that Lee had spent money from her son's GoFundMe page on a car. The posts were promptly deleted and DNAinfo Chicago could not independently confirm this Saturday afternoon. The news outlet could not reach the page creator.

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The report says that some commenters on social media and on GoFundMe asked for their money back if the family received free burial services. One GoFundMe contributer, Joe Smith, wrote, "Used the money to buy a car, rather than either return it or donate it to charity. It was given to her to offset funeral costs and instead she used it to benefit herself," notes the report.

The child was lured to the alley on Monday, reigniting concern about persistent violence in the city. He was killed near his grandmother's home in the Auburn-Gresham community on the South Side. A reward for information that leads to his killers has increased to $54,000.